Gassy rooster

Recently, I took S-phie to the beach for the weekend - no babies, no daddy, just me and the girl (and the grandparents, whose time-share we were free-loading). The gassy girl, which she has always been, from birth on. We're riding in the elevator back up to the condo after a nice swim and it's just me, S-ph, and a man we don't know. Everyone is quiet until S-phie farts quite audibly and then turns and exclaims, "Mama!!!!" I just laughed - I couldn't believe it. When we got out, I said, "S-phie!!" To which she blithely responded, "What? You always do it to me." Touche.

Babies having babies

S-ph and Zo- enjoying a moment with their babies
before Kindergarten starts next week

LF in the house

"Full Effect"















"LF in respose"

LF

I’ve really been meaning to write about this for awhile. In fact, I thought that by the time I got around to it, that it would be moot – that the phase would have passed. But it has not. Perhaps it is not even a phase, but a personality type, but let’s just call it a phase for now. Or even a developmental stage, to euphemize. The Little Fucker developmental stage. We like to call it “LF,” kind of like “MF*,” only insert Little instead of Mother. The most obvious manifestation of the LF stage is tantrums, but what distinguishes the LF stage from normal toddler tantrums is the sense of entitlement that seems to fuel it all. For instance, when you change H-nry’s diaper, he’s not just hopping mad b/c it’s boring and he’d rather be doing something else – he feels violated, he cannot even begin to believe that such indignity is being suffered upon him again - ­he’s a victim, but he’s not just going to take it lying down, he fights it tooth and nail every single time because he is entitled to something better. Perhaps our proximity to Duke has infected him with a sense of white male privilege at a young age – that’s my current theory. At first I thought it was bitterness about weaning, but that was months ago, and in any case that just proves my theory of entitlement-based behavior, as even though I’d nursed him for a year, he felt entitled to continued access to the breast. But he feels entitled to a lot more than that – he appears to feel entitled to everything, resulting in one indignant little fucker every time he doesn’t get his way – how dare you, do you know who I am, he says. Attempts to distract or appease him when he’s in a paroxysm of little fuckerness only make him angrier – he knows he’s being patronized. He bangs his head on the floor, throws things, and shakes as he stiffens his whole body and screams with all of his might. It may sound like an anger management problem, but the LF stage runs deeper than the outward manifestation of anger. I worry that he will become a right-wing extremist or some other sort of devoted fascist. He has the fortitude for it. I can only hope that he will use his might for good instead of evil. For now, it really works for him. I am a sucker for the allure of the bad boy – I love him not in spite of him being a little fucker, but because of it. So cute it is, the way he's a little fucker. My boy.

*At one point C-rina’s name was to be Maisy, but I just couldn’t give her the initials M.F.

Inventory

Tomorrow is a very exciting day. We are getting a new refrigerator - a bigass, double-wide, fit-for-a-family-of-five behemoth. Be gone you tiny 19 cu feet p.o.s., with your measly storage capacity, defunct icemaker and missing veggie crisper drawer - be gone. Welcome, luxurious side-by-side, we eagerly await the Sears truck that will deliver you, and thereby deliver us, tomorrow. What is notable about emptying out my fridge in preparation for the big event is not the grime that was in the fridge or the stuff I found in there, it was what was on top of the fridge, to wit:

1. All of S-phie's artwork from school for the last several months
2. One tuition receipt for S-phie's daycare
3. One blue enamaled cast iron la creuset trivet (wedding present???) (a.k.a. massive head wound/broken toe/child neglect waiting to happen)
4. One yellow child's umbrella
5. One size 4 Huggie's overnight diaper (unused!)
6. One non-stick cookie sheet
7. One metal dish-drying rack
8. One dry erase eraser
9. One jump rope
10. One cardboard tab from the opening to a box of garbage bags
11. One small bubble wand
12. One off-white fleece glove w/spaklies and fuzzy around the wrist
13. Two lunchboxes and one thermal bottle carrier
14. One empty jewelry box
15. One empty plastic picture frame
16. Two half-full boxes of large bibsters
17. One stiff fabric insert that goes in the bottom of a storage bin
18. One carbon monoxide detector

Impressive, if I do say so myself. Just think how much shit we can fit on top of the new fridge . . .